Day: July 27, 2018

Thank you to an alert viewer who noticed that I incorrectly named this Park Jedediah Scott in the original post, not Jedediah Smith.  I stand corrected!

Thursday morning I revisited this Park, which I had driven through the day before.  I posted one of these in another post but want to show them again.  When I first entered the Park on the rough, dusty dirt road the accumulation of gray dust kicked by by other vehicles on the ferns near the road made for an interesting sight:

Further in the Park I decided to stop and get out of the car in a few places to take some pictures:

The guy’s wife was standing behind the tree trunk on the right taking his picture and as I was going back to get my car out of their way I discovered that their two daughters were actually up in the tree trunk on the left, which had a huge hollow area in it (like a gigantic wooden straw).

As is often the case, the pictures don’t do it justice.  There were times I felt like, but for the road, I was in a Lord of the Rings movie and Frodo and Sam would come marching out of the woods at any moment.

Once I got back out to the paved road I went over a bridge.  I had stopped both yesterday and today to get a picture of the river (which didn’t meet my expectations either day) but today I noticed some folks down enjoying a day by the water.

The ladies are on the right, catching some rays while the guys are on the left, “runnin’ the dogs.”

Thursday afternoon, after driving through Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park again, I thought I’d check out this lighthouse which is just north of Crescent City:

Trust me, it’s out there folks.  This lighthouse was built 6 miles out in the ocean (and right now I doubt if I can see a half mile).

Here is the view looking south:

And looking north:

And it was the craziest thing…. as I stood there looking out at the rock formation I could barely see ahead of me (first photo) I thought I could hear music!  I listened for a while and thought maybe someone was out there in a boat with a boombox cranked up, but after a few minutes I think I figured it out.

It was “seal music”.

Now I’m not talking about Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, born February 19, 1963.  I’m talking about what had to have been a huge group of seals barking.  I asked a young lady who was parking in a car nearby and she confirmed it.  And when I got home I was telling my Airbnb hostess and she said that if the conditions are right they can sometimes hear them when they are out in their yard (they live about a mile inland), and they can also hear the waves crashing if the surf if really powerful.

I drove further out to the point itself and walked a little ways north to watch and listen to just the ocean for a while:

Thursday evening I went out in search of dinner and to run my car through a car wash (after two trips through the dusty road in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park it REALLY needed a bath) I drove south of town to this overlook.  The coastal fog had moved out into the ocean a bit so visibility right by the beach was better than it had been all day:

This was looking south, towards Enderts Beach, which I thought I could drive to but found out I had to walk.  It is a little ways further south and not visible in the photo.  There was something specific there I was hoping to see but it will have to wait for another time.  I’m told I may find it somewhere else in the next few days.

And this is the beach looking north:

And way off in the distance, shrouded by fog from this vantage point, is Crescent City (left half of photo).

 

Thursday night on the way home from Crescent Beach I stopped by the Harbor to check out a restaurant that several people had told me about. They said there was also a spot next to the restaurant to see seals up close. I went to the spot they told me about and out on the old dock (a platform there specifically to keep the seals away from people – apparently they can be pretty nasty) there were not the tens or hundreds I was expecting, but exactly two.

Well, three. There was one in the water that would stick his head up for a few seconds then disappear underwater only to pop up somewhere else about a minute later (and I think it may actually be a sea lion).

Since that one was unpredictable I went back to the two on the dock, who were VERY predictable. The gray one did move his head around a bit but the other seemed to be sound asleep.

I believe I need a drink.

I heard that…

I’d hate for you to drink alone…

Then I changed my attention to a brown pelican which was flying around and in the course of a few minutes plunged into the water several times to catch fish. This was just after the first successful catch I witnessed:

Then he took off to try again:

I missed the next landing but shortly after it he took off yet again:

And it wasn’t long after that when he struck again:

Before I left the harbor I snagged two more pictures of the Battery Point Light, across the harbor from where I was. I had taken a picture from this vantage point Tuesday afternoon when I arrived in town and it was just a tad clearer Thursday evening when I took these.